While certain Canadian icons such as RIM and maple syrup slide in popularity, Sonomax’s unique custom earphone, and XEquals’ BlueSLR, a gotta-have-it dongle that turns your iPod touch/iPad/iPhone into a remote shutter release for your camera, are hoisting the Canadian flag to new technological heights. For me, the latter rocks simple reason that: I always have my iPod touch with me, and that I’ve been looking for an integrated wireless shutter release for my camera for a long time. Considering that the BlueSLR also does GPS and a host of other things, I think that many photographers will agree that this is a revolutionary product.

If you brave the world of photography (or merely want to) armed with the all the bravado of a point-and-click iPhone, FX Photo Studio (FXPS) is for you. If you happen to run into the wind, with a 2000$ tripod strapped to your back with an iPhone in your front pocket, FX Photo Studio is still for you. Unlike some photo apps, FXPS’s is friendly, but despite is simplicity, offers a lot to even the seasonedest of photographers.

Due to the ever increasing variety of mobile applications developed today, choosing the right one for what you need can be difficult. With the vast range of photography apps alone, how do you know which ones are any good? Below is a list of ten useful photography apps, determined by functionality, customer reviews and price. I have tried to include apps that are available on as many OSes as possible, however the Symbian (Nokia), Palm, Blackberry and Android (to some degree) markets have yet to catch up with the bewildering array of apps for the iPhone.

With the recent publication of Apple’s App Store review guidelines, one of my favourite quotes is definitely “We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps. If your app doesn’t do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted.” If only they really enforced it… Anyway with the plentiful supply of various camera apps already on the Store it would seem a new contender to the genre should be something original, especially considering the above-mentioned guideline. And Camera illusion actually is!

Photo enthusiasts, when Steve Jobs said the iPhone was “like a beautiful old Leica camera”, the heaven’s shook and water poured from the pores of expectant camera fans. Leica cameras have been sexy for decades, but they are really, really expensive. Thankfully, the precisely designed iPhone 4 shares some shocking similarities with a few Leica cameras and costs thousands less. Thanks to the clever use of seals and iPhone cases, users can enjoy their iPhone 4′s in mock Leica goodness. For the poor in spirit, Nikonjin have unearthed Nikon rangefinder skins as well.

A recent trip to Canada changed my life in many ways. Firstly, it severed the ties I had to a silly corporate decision; and secondly, it put an iPad into my hands. Thanks to Apple’s “magical” device, I’ve been able to take gigabytes and gigabytes of photos (though I’ve uploaded only a few to my flickr account), sort them, and offload them later to my lappy, that foul tool that I no longer have to carry around. Along the way, I picked up two interesting iPhone/iPod touch apps: The Photographer’s Ephemeris and Golden Hour. Both tools do the same basic thing: tell where in the sky the sun is; it’s how they do them that is the interesting bit.

I’m sure many of you have seen the videos that showed up last year when Adobe was announcing their CS5 suite and the truly magical content aware fill feature! The amazing tool that did everything, from finishing your homework to cleaning up garbage on your lawn blew my mind with the endless possibilities. No wonder that when NeoMobili offered me to review their CaPix application for the iPhone, one advertised to have the same possibilities, I was eager, though a bit skeptical.

Michael Koerbel has just proved that iMovie for the iPhone 4 isn’t just another media app. His multi-shot, multi-scene movie, “Apple of my eye” is proof that both new technologies are powerful tools. Mr. Koerbel hasn’t revealed all the technology used in the making of the film, but suffice it to say that strapped to ingenious panning machines, impressive videos can be shot.

I love taking pictures on my iPhone. Even though it’s only an older 3G it’s always with me and the quality is decent enough that I can even print them out. But once I get the photos on the device itself there’s little I can do with them but view them. I can’t even rotate them for god’s sake! In these trying times, the only place to turn to is one of the thousands of photo-editing apps at the AppStore. And today I’m turning to Photo Infinity.

Louis is the Olympus guy, not me. But anything at the App Store from a professional camera maker gets me hot’n bothered. GetOlympus is a social networking app where users in USA and Canada can share their photos, tips, and photography stories. For students of photography, it is a virtual lesson. Thankfully, Olympus released GetOlympus for free (a good bit of advertising wuffie if you ask me), so anyone with a camera can benefit from their benevolence. The only catch is that you need to be connected to the internet to enjoy the content…